Reply to post: "Random Mutation

"Random Mutation

Kevin Kelly, editor of Wired wrote:

…molecular biologist, Barry Hall, published results which not only confirmed Cairns’s claims but laid on the table startling additional evidence of direct mutation in nature. Hall found that his cultures of E. coli would produce needed mutations at a rate about 100 million times greater than would be statistically expected if they came by chance. Furthermore, when he dissected the genes of these mutated bacteria by sequencing them, he found mutations in no areas other than the one where there was selection pressure. This means that the successful bugs did not desperately throw off all kinds of mutations to find the one that works; they pinpointed the one alteration that fit the bill. Hall found some directed variations so complex they required the mutation of two genes simultaneously. He called that “the improbable stacked on top of the highly unlikely.” These kinds of miraculous change are not the kosher fare of serial random accumulation that natural selection is supposed to run on. They have the smell of some design.